Does free dining change your mind?

[Gr8t Fan]

We've booked a short trip in August, 2012 at POR with FD because we'll be minus one family member and able to fit in one room, but we're not sure we're going to keep the reservation. We have until July, 2012 to decide because that's when the balance of the trip is due.

 

[debbs0723]

[/B]


I agree with this. It seems like this thread is going back to the onsite vs. offsite discussion and there are so many different reasons and preferences for choosing to go either route. It is not always about space and budget or full immersion and all inclusiveness. Depending on what you plan do do, how long your trip is for, and what your overall preferences are, an onsite stay with free dining may suit a family perfectly one year but may not work at all for that same family on another trip.

I agree with you also. I don't think there is just one way to do it and each trip for each family is different. I asked my husband again last night if he wanted to reconsider and since we are doing universal also and are staying for 8-9 nights he voted for the space vs the free dining. If we were doing a shorter, disney only trip it probably would have changed our minds. I would have been fine with either but he had three good reasons. He wanted the space, he still wants to rent a car regardless, and turns out even though he loves to eat he did not like being tied down to ADRs and felt like he was just stuffing himself all the time.

We have never stayed off site. I know that people say the "fully immersed" feeling is important. Honestly we have stayed on site twice and I don't know that I will really notice the difference but we shall see. The first stay at CSR and the second at the POP. Most of the condos I looked at actually had more disney theming inside than a lot of resorts. I have been truly surprised at how beautiful most of them are.

Debbie

 

[mlnbabies]

I had a WH condo booked before the free dining came out but I did look at staying on site with the free dining. I would end paying about $1000 more if I cancelled my condo and switched to a moderate with 2 queen beds. The idea of having a 2 bedroom/2 bath suite can't come close to what Disney has for the price of a WH condo. I did look at the villas and such at Disney but they are so expensive. There will be me, my dh, and dd's who are 11 and 8 so we would like the extra room. My dd's are too old to sleep comfortable on a sleeper sofa so that also cut down on Disney rooms.

 

[thereallolo]

For us, no, free dining doesn't change our minds. We are a group of 11 and three generations. The cost to stay on site would have been outrageous.
We are staying at WBC and also got a campsite at Fort Wilderness with a pop-up camper. For us, this is kind of the best of both worlds. We can still participate in the EMH and all the extras that being a Disney Resort guest has to offer, and also still have the space we will have at WBC. The kids are already planning their nights in the tents and at WBC!!

Also, I enjoy cooking and I find it easy to throw something in the crock pot in the morning and have minimal work to do when we get back from the parks in the evening for dinner. I don't mind leaving the parks early to come back and cook. I love cooking! I might even take a vacation to Italy, just to cook

 

[Princess Disney Mom]

We've booked a short trip in August, 2012 at POR with FD because we'll be minus one family member and able to fit in one room, but we're not sure we're going to keep the reservation. We have until July, 2012 to decide because that's when the balance of the trip is due.

How did you book free dining for next year?

 

[Tinkerbellah]

Now that free dining has been released on many dates from jan-March does it change any of your minds staying off site. We had resigned ourselves to offsite. I'm still leaning that way but I'm wondering how you guys justify still staying off site. The rack room rates are pretty high for what they are so it seems that It is about $100 difference a day to stay in a moderate with free dining for 4 people vs. staying offsite and paying for parking.

We were planning on mostly quick service meals and eating offsite and at the condo so I had budgeted $100 per day for meals for 3 non big eater kids and 2 adults. Again, this is not for table service restuarants.

We could save a little by staying on site in a value and doing the quick service plan but I'm not 100% sure I want to do that.


Thoughts?

Debbie

Debbie, staying on site for free dining is AWESOME! We got to stay for 2 weeks once b/c of how much $ we saved! If it was during the time we r staying we would most def. w/out a doubt stay on site. Plus we love the Restaurants.

 

[momto2js]

I am a vote for FD makes me more likely to stay off-site. We are going in September and I have tried for months to book ONE character meal for our week long trip with no success. We simply can not make too many commitments in our one week vacation because my kids are still in unpredictable ages. When there is FD if you miss you ADR it seems like you are SOL.

In November, we are making a long weekend trip and for a 3 night say I figured we could deal with all being in one room so I priced CBR and it was competitive with our off property options however, even for a short stay my DH voted for at least 2 rooms!! Now a that FD is available for those dates as well, I'm sure there isn't any way I'd get the ADR's I was looking for anyway.

 

[SoccerDad]

My wife and I decided that we were staying off-site next year (2012), regardless of FD...until it was actually announced. Once it was officially available we adjusted our vacation date in order to snag it!

We've been to WDW each of the past 5 years, and each year alternated between on- and off-site. As you all know there are definite pros and cons to each. I guess the cons from our most recent visit played a major part in planning for the next visit, since we were constantly alternating!

This year (2011) was the first time FD was available during our travel dates, so we went for POR and FD. Previously our on-site stays were at Value resorts without DDP. For us, upgrading from a Value to Moderate resort was a huge improvement. We also really enjoyed the ability to try new meals and restaurants with everything "prepaid".

One thing we remained certain about was that we'd rather stay off-site than stay at a Value resort. According to our budget staying at POFQ with FD should come out to about $200 cheaper than staying at a pool home, with all else being equal (same park tickets, still renting a car). Not a huge savings, really...so what that tells me is that our family prefers staying on-site at a Moderate resort when the price is about the same as staying off-site...and that only seems to happen when some type of serious discount is offered.

 

[iamadisneynut]

I'm conflicted about this....we'd have to do a cabin vs. the 4 bedroom home we usually rent, so the space would be seriously downgraded! But I'm very tempted by the free dining just for the experience of staying onsite and having the opportunity to do lots of character meals etc.

It would actually cost us quite a bit more to stay onsite even with the free dining, but part of me wants to do it just this once....ugh.

I know DH would rather do the house, but would book the cabin if I really wanted to, I just don't want to do it and then find out it's too cramped and wasn't worth it.

 

[Sammy Cat]

I would have to say that when we were planning our trip, this was a big issue for me because I LOVE to save money. I did A LOT of research with offsite hotels for our family of four, and nothing (nice enough to justify staying off site) could measure up to the FD deal in cost $avings. When you account for a family of four, we knew with QS lunches costing $60 on average, plus dinner being $100, our $200 room at POR was only costing us about $50 a night! Sure we could have eaten offsite and been careful and maybe spent $120 a day on food, but who wants to pinch pennies on their vacation? You want to relax and enjoy yourself and this still would have put us over the cost of staying on site with a $100 a night hotel.

We had never stayed on site before, and always avoided the dining due to cost, so we saw this as a great opportunity to experience Disney in a new way. And it was great. I am glad we tried it. We got to try restaurants we never would have otherwise; we booked well in advance and got two character dining meals and the kids got tons of prime autographs. POR was nice but we had to change rooms because they didn't meet any of our room requests despite multiple call backs. Part of the reason I wanted to stay onsite was for the great theming, especially with the pools, but as it turned out, the kids preferred swimming in the quiet pool every day and we only used the theme pool once! Part of this was due to our location at the resort, I think. I requested to be in building 16 or near the main pool and we were put in Oak Manor, which was a bit of a walk but definitely not the worst location in the resort. We went to POFQ on our last day to try the beniets and we were not impressed and glad we chose POR. POFQ seems to be a more adult resort or young parents with toddler resort with the theming and type of pool. Although the updated rooms and queen beds would have probably made it all worth it.

If you have never stayed on site before, I say go for it, definitely worth it! But in the OP situation, however, you seem to have done all the onsite dining, so I would probably try for comfort and get a nice condo offsite. Being onsite isn't all that close to the parks anyways, it was always at least a 10 minute drive for us. Plus it was quite a trek at night to the hotel room to carry the sleeping kids, because our room was no where near a parking lot. The disadvantage we also found with FD was that it took so much of our time away from having fun in the parks, about 1 1/2 hours each time for ts dinner and even quick service would have 45 minute line-ups. I don't know, but eating offsite to save money would also mean having to leave earlier and coming back if you were not ready to leave. I guess I am not much help, sorry!

 

[Patience]

It did factor into our decision to switch from an off-site condo to on-site (well, that and the fact that my oldest daughter really wanted to be on-site). We are a family of four: two adults, one teenager and one preschooler.

A 2 bedroom 2 bath condo was going to run us around $550 for the week, once you factored in cleaning fee and taxes. Parking for 6 days in the park was $84. 6 day tickets (non parkhopper) through Undercover Tourist were going to cost us a little over $1000. So basically we would have spent around $1650 to stay in the condo BEFORE any food costs. At the time we had the condo booked, I was planning to pay OOP for two character meals which would have cost us around $300 total. So my total for the condo plus tickets and 2 character meals was $1950 and that only paid for 2 meals. I booked a room at POP for $1983 with free dining upgraded to DPP and we now have reservations for 3 character meals plus three other sit down meals, plus 6 counter service meals and six snacks. I am giving up the room of the condo (and I will miss that for sure) but we are gaining a lot of free food PLUS my husband will be a whole lot happier not having to pull out the wallet for every meal. My teenager will be happier too because when we eat out, my husband always "encourages" everyone to order cheaply and now we don't have to worry about that and she can order what she wants. My 4 year old will love the character meals. And I will enjoy not having to go grocery shopping and not having to cook or clean up. We are saving a bit more money by bringing our own mini-fridge to store water, soda and juice (we have room) and our own coffee maker so we won't have to buy the mugs. All in all, I am quite pleased with our deal.

 

[kstgelais4]

I didn't read all the posts first, but anyway these are my thoughts on the situation.
Last year we stayed offsite in a condo at Orange lakes during FD. I loved staying there but we were only doing Disney, and these are the things I didn't love about the situation.
-Parking. with 10 day passes it cost us an extra $140 just to park. Yes we knew that's what it would be. Yes, we budgeted for it, but yowza it still hurt to fork over that amount daily.
-Character meal prices. We are a young family. We NEED to do at least once character meal. Paying over $200 for breakfast is insane.
-I am on vacation too. I want to forget about cooking and cleaning for a week, just like DH wants to forget about working for a week. We ended up spending another $1000 on food, and I STILL cooked everyday with that number.
All of these factors have lead us to book FD this year. Yes, we have to book 2 rooms, but in the end it is going to cost us about the same amount as staying offsite. I'm really looking forward to not feeling like I am being nickled and dimed.

 

[moepanz]

I sat and broke down our up coming trip (with free dining) in Dec. We are a family of 5. Me, dh, ds8, twins 5. We booked 6 nights at POP, 7 day base tix, and QS dining plan (which I now love after last trip, not being a slave to the ADR) it came out to be $77 per person per day. I could not believe how reasonable it really was. If you want to get really technical with air fare it is $109 per person per day. I don't have to rent a car thanks to Magical express. I was ready to book off site but when I look at $77 per day per per person to be exactly where I want to be, on site wins every time.